Bottle and other container orienting devices are known in the prior art and are used with conveyors which move the containers during their manufacture or subsequent filling, labeling, inspection, and packaging.
Such orienting apparatuses are described in the patent literature, and include, but are not limited to devices described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,545,476; 4,561,534; 4,640,406; 4,653,628; 4,784,493; 4,880,100; 5,009,305; 5,040,661; 5,058,724; 5,560,471; 5,823,317; 5,924,546; 5,975,278; 7,798,308 B2; 7,870,943 B2; 7,921,980 B2; and U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2009/0218193 A1.
However, such devices typically contact the sides or a feature (such as a neck) of the containers, and as a result are only capable of handling a single, or limited number of, sizes and shapes of containers. For example, some of such prior devices may rely on contacting a feature of the container, such as the neck of a bottle or the sides of a bottle in order to rotate the bottle to the desired orientation. In many cases, the mechanism (such as a belt, recessed wheel, etc.) that applies the force of rotation will be in direct contact with such portions of the container. If it is necessary to handle containers of different sizes and shapes, it often will be necessary to modify or change parts on such prior devices. This can be time-consuming, and result in undesirable downtime during which the equipment is not operational. The search for improved orienting apparatuses and methods for orienting articles has, therefore, continued.